As U.S. Dissents, U.N. Approves A New Council On Rights Abuse

By WARREN HOGE

Published: March 16, 2006

With the United States in virtually lone opposition, the United Nations overwhelmingly approved a new Human Rights Council on Wednesday to replace the widely discredited Human Rights Commission.

The vote in the General Assembly was 170 to 4 with 3 abstentions. Joining the United States were Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau. Belarus, Iran and Venezuela abstained.

Secretary General Kofi Annan, who first proposed the council a year ago, hailed the decision, saying, ''This gives the United Nations the chance -- a much needed chance -- to make a new beginning in its work for human rights around the world.''

But John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador, said the proposed council was ''not sufficiently improved'' over the commission, which has been faulted for permitting notorious rights abusers to join.

''We must not let the victims of human rights abuses throughout the world think that U.N. member states were willing to settle for 'good enough,' '' Mr. Bolton said in a statement after the vote. ''We must not let history remember us as the architects of a council that was a 'compromise' and merely 'the best we could do' rather than one that ensured doing 'all we could do' to promote human rights.''

He said the United States would ''work cooperatively'' to strengthen the council, but he did not say whether the United States would be a candidate to serve on it.

That decision, a critical consideration for the panel's future, is still ''under discussion,'' said a senior administration official in Washington who requested anonymity because he was discussing unsettled policy.

The resolution calls for the election of new council members on May 9 and a first meeting of the council on June 19. The commission, which is beginning its annual session in Geneva next week, will be abolished on June 16.

The council will have 47 members, as opposed to the commission's 53; the means to make timely interventions in crises; and a year-round presence, with three meetings a year at its Geneva base lasting a total of at least 10 weeks. The commission has traditionally met for six weeks, once a year.

Under terms meant to restrict rights abusers from membership, candidates for the council will be voted on individually rather than as a regional group, their rights records will be subject to mandatory periodic review and countries found guilty of abuses can be suspended.

But the final text had a weakened version of the crucial membership restriction in Mr. Annan's original plan, which required new members to be elected by two-thirds of those voting. Instead, council members will be elected by an absolute majority of member states, meaning 96 votes.

Major rights organizations and a number of American allies in the United Nations -- which had all lobbied Washington to reconsider its opposition -- argued that the terms were far better than existing ones and would keep major abusers off the council.